The JPEG2000 image compression standard provides high compression ratios but is computationally complex and therefore slow. This is particularly problematic in the area of video compression where slow compression leads to jumpy or otherwise unacceptable video play back rates. Several method have been suggested to speed up the compression, however, each is high cost or otherwise does not provide a sufficient increase in speed to justify the increased cost.
The JPEG2000 standard may utilize an iteratively applied discrete wavelet transform (DWT) 5/3 as part of the compression algorithm. This pseudo-code describes the odd and even wavelet transforms:                // DWT, ROW, ODD i        x[i]=x[i]−(x[i−1]+x[i+1])/2;        // DWT, ROW, EVEN i        x[i]=x[i]+(new_x[i−1]+new_x[i+1]+2)/4;        
The initial step of DWT decomposes the data into a set of basis functions called wavelets through the use of low pass and high pass filters. The wavelets result in interleaved data. A lifting scheme has been proposed to speed up the compression. The lifting scheme deinterleaves the data and creates 4 subbands (i.e. LL, HL, LH, HH) for 2D images. The next decomposition would then operate on the LL subband. For each decomposition, the lifting scheme is used to deinterleave the data. The deinterleaving process results in the moving of large amounts of data; for each decomposition, almost all of the data must be moved, although with each successive decomposition the amount of data is reduced by three quarters. The movement of data through deinterleaving is a primary drawback to the DWT compression algorithms. The data movement necessary to deinterleave is shown in FIG. 2.
The present invention overcomes one or more of these problems.